The “ordinary working-class woman” Keir Starmer referenced in his conference speech as having been crucial to shifting his views on immigration says she “doesn’t believe a word” that comes out of the Prime Minister’s mouth. And she’ll never vote for Labour again…
Speaking to the Manchester Evening News, Joyce Todd said:
“I don’t believe a word [Starmer] says, I’m sorry. I was brought up Labour… My parents were Labour. But I will never vote for them again.”
“She, an ordinary working-class woman from Oldham, a Labour voter, felt that she had to prove to a Labour politician that she wasn’t racist before she could even bring up the issues in her community. I carried that with me through all the bad years […] we are a party that patronised working people and that is why we changed the party.”
While Westminster hacks forgot Labour’s woes at its now-finished conference some recent scandals were still causing shockwaves in the party. A Mandelson-shaped shadow was looming….
Guido is told by a selection of Labour MPs and staffers that they decided to boycott the annual private reception hosted on Monday by Global Counsel, the powerhouse lobbying firm founded by Peter Mandelson. It’s handbags inside Labour over this one…
Mandelson, a long term enemy of the Labour left, was also criticised by the soft left wing led by Ed Miliband. Though those close to the ex-Ambassador are already talking about his eventual return…
Deputy Labour Leader contenders Bridget Phillipson and Lucy Powell are going head-to-head on the main stage at Labour conference. It could get spicy…
Phillipson reiterates to the audience that she will use her “voice at the Cabinet table” to get things done.
Rachel Reeves is doing little to push back on this evening’s briefings to the Sun and the Guardian on the lifting of the two-child benefit cap. Speaking to Matt Forde at Labour Conference this evening, Reeves said of the reports:
“Keir said in his speech today that we will reduce child poverty in this parliament, but we will set out the policies in the budget. I think we’ve been pretty clear this week that we can’t commit to policies without explaining where the money is going to come from… over the last year the conflicts in the world have continued and intensified. That puts pressures on government budgets, we’ve had disruptions to the supply chains which keeps inflation high…”
Asked later if she would, as reported, introduce a tapered chid benefit system, Reeves again said she would set all that out at the Winter Budget. So that’s a ‘yes, but brace for tax hikes to pay for it’…
A minister at the Department for Education has an hour after Starmer’s conference speech complained that she has “no idea” when the government is meant to implement the pledge to get two-thirds of children to university OR ‘gold-standard’ apprenticeships. Scrapping a now-irrelevant Blairite target that no one had any idea was still in place..
Education minister Georgia Gould was asked at a Labour Conference event after Starmer’s speech whether there was a date for the policy. She responded: “I have no idea. I know as much as you do.” Good to see DFE was kept appropriately in the dark…
Gould also declined to specify if it was a pledge or an ambition. She did add that Jacqui Smith is a minister in both DFE and DWP so would be able to co-ordinate the execution of the pledge. See how that goes…
Starmer is giving his conference speech. Hand crafted by the PM and his top aides, the key one of which is no longer in Downing Street…
He said: “Free speech is a British value… and Mister -“ before stopping himself and going on. Is Lindsay Hoyle in the audience…
Lobby hacks are otherwise showering Starmer with praise for his speech, which is already being written up as the crescendo of a mighty Labour Conference in which the PM batted away a Burnham challenge and delivered a few home truths to critics on his left and his right. See – it’s not that hard to write this guff..
Speaking on Times Radio, former Home Secretary David Blunkett spoke about overdiagnosis of mental problems:
“Let’s distinguish those who are really severely mentally ill, diagnosed with things that require prolonged medical and diagnostic treatment. My wife and I talk about this a lot, because she’s a retired GP, about the fact that you can be sad without being ill. You can be momentarily depressed because your boyfriend or girlfriend’s just thrown you and you’re not mentally ill. You can even have mild issues, which can be dealt with with the right kind of support, but it doesn’t make you mentally ill. So we’ve got a real task, I think, to get the psychology, if you like, of this over. But there are things where you definitely need medical intervention, and there are other things where you need good friends, you need good connectivity, and you need a job.”